Melbourne epidemiologist Professor James Trauer said that it’s “very likely” that the city should go into its fifth lockdown due to a spike of COVID-19 cases originating from NSW.
There have been 11 new cases of the highly contagious Delta variant and Trauer has recommended lockdown as he spoke to Sunrise.
“We’ve seen increasing cases over the last few days, more exposure sites every day and I think we know that if we go early with lockdowns, the earlier we go, the shorter they need to be,” the head of Epidemiological Modelling at Monash University explained.
“We need to get on top of this and we still don’t really understand the scale of the number of cases that are being created at the moment, so I would really support an early lockdown.”
“We need to get on top of this”
Epidemiologist @JamesTrauer says Melbourne should be plunged into a fifth coronavirus lockdown to stop the highly-infectious Delta variant from spreading. pic.twitter.com/YJV1Gpimd3
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) July 14, 2021
The Victorian government in a response to the outbreak has mandated that masks be worn indoors across the state.
From Thursday, anyone over the age of 12 will be required to wear a mask in all indoor settings, including schools and workplaces, unless there is an exception.
“I was very glad to see that masks are being mandated indoors,” Professor Trauer said.
“That’s a very sensible thing to do first-up and then lockdown measures are logical to follow after that,” he added.
